Labor Dept.: black lung claims problems being fixed

Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee, Special to The Courier-Journal Harlan, Kentucky - Earl "Chip" Coffey is a US Army Veteran and coal miner who joined the military and spent 13 years serving his country as a sniper. In that time he was deployed to Kuwait, Somalia, and was part of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. While stationed in Hussein's palaces, Coffey and a few of his fellow soldiers found $586, 000 US dollars in cash hidden in a safe. They decided to keep the money and tried to send it home to their families, but were caught. He was arrested and court marshaled and sentenced to 24 months in military prison with a forfeiture of all paying allowances, was reduced in rank, and received a bad conduct discharge from the military. After serving time in prison, Coffey was homeless in Florida until he decided to return to Harlan and join his family in the coal mines.(Photo: Geoff Oliver)

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WASHINGTON - Coal miners who are waiting many months for black lung benefits or are being wrongly denied those benefits are going to get help, a top Labor Department official told Congress Tuesday.

The government is re-examining more than 1,000 claims cases after an expose last year by ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity revealed how coal industry attorneys withheld key medical evidence aimed at preventing the awarding of black lung benefits to sick miners.

A huge backlog of black lung claims also is being addressed, Deputy Labor Secretary Christopher Lu told a subcommittee of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

"Let me assure you the Department of Labor is committed to improving the effectiveness of these programs," Lu said.

Black lung is a respiratory disease caused by prolonged exposure to excessive levels of coal dust. An estimated 75,000 miners died from the disease between 1968 and 2007.

Incidences of black lung are increasing in the Appalachian coal-mining region, which includes Kentucky, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The Labor Department is issuing a new rule that will strengthen requirements for disclosing medical information in black lung cases, Lu said.

About 1,100 claimants who were denied claims are being contacted and being told they have a right to re-open their claims or file new claims, the deputy secretary said.

The Obama administration also is seeking an increase of $2.72 million in fiscal 2015 to hire additional administrative law judges to tackle a claims backlog of about 14,000 cases.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said black lung claimants are waiting an average of 429 days just to get their cases assigned to a judge. The miners then have to wait an additional 90 to 120 days for their claims to be heard, he said.